An ice cream stand is coming back to East Taunton, and in its first week of opening it’s making a sweet gesture.

The Amaro Bros. Ice Cream Shoppe will take all the profits it makes in its first week open, starting on May 1, and donate it to a church effort to build a vocational school in an impoverished area of Guatemala in the name of an 18-year-old Taunton native who died in a recent car crash.

Store owners Aaron and Sonia Amaro want to use their first-week earnings to support the Christ Community Church effort to create the school and name it in honor of congregation member Monica DeMello, who traveled to the Central American country on missionary service trips before she was killed by an alleged drunk driver on March 30 on Route 44 in Lakeville.

"We wanted to help somehow," said Sonia Amaro, who, along with her husband, is a member Christ Community Church in Taunton, where DeMello attended. "It’s actually something we felt that it was God speaking to us through her. We felt we should do something."

The Amaro Bros. Ice Cream Shoppe is opening up at 478 Middleboro Ave., the former site of Skippy’s and Frosty’s. But unlike those before it, The Amaro Bros. Ice Cream Shoppe will serve only hard style ice cream, instead of soft-serve.

Aaron Amaro, whose family has long owned the nearby Amaro's Market, said that the seven workers hired for the new ice cream shop have agreed to donate tips during the first week to the Guatemala school effort, and that for every three-gallon tub he sells the ice cream supplier will donate $10 to the cause.

Coincidentally, Aaron Amaro said, the supplier selected by the new shop was Acushnet Creamery. Later on, after coming up with the plan to contribute to the Guatemala school effort with the first-week ice cream money, Amaro discovered that DeMello once worked at the local creamery.

"It just happened to be a coincidence," he said. " Monica worked where we are getting our ice cream. I had no idea."

Aaron Amaro said the vocational school that the Christ Community Church is planning to erect will be in a community that DeMello visited on a missionary trip. DeMello went with Christ Community Church to Guatemala last February, as part of the church’s mission to adopt the village of El Arco in the northeastern part of the country. The church's missionary outreach effort included work to supply water, as well as supporting education and health care in the area.

DeMello was remembered by loved ones as a caring person, known for her devotion to religion and service to others.

Aaron Amaro said he hopes the new ice cream shop fills the void left by other ice cream stands that were located there throughout the last 15 years.

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"We purchased the building a couple of years ago," said Amaro, adding that it will be open seasonally from May to October. "A lot of the local customers had asked to bring back the ice cream shoppe. We thought it’d be a good idea for the neighborhood and a positive place to go for people of all ages."

The Amaro Bros. Ice Cream Shoppe will be open from noon to 9 p.m. The store will offer 35 flavors, including the standards, along with more exotic styles like coconut Almond Joy, Cookie Monster and "The Purple Cow," along with sugar free varieties, sherbet and frozen yogurt.

"Around here there is not many ice cream places," Sonia Amaro said. "I think it’ll be very good."